As I was whiling away time on the beach on an unexpected vacation/team-building/business trip last week, a surprise piece of news dropped into the Mail app on my brand spanking new iPad 3. Straandlooper, the developers behind the hilarious and witty old-school adventure HECTOR: Badge of Carnage Ep1 (TMA Review) / Ep2 / Ep3,Â are hard at work on all new projects after the success of the trilogy (If you’ll recall, Badge of Carnage caused so much buzz in the adventure gaming scene that Telltale teamed up with StraandlooperÂ to bring Hector to multiple platforms). Yes, projects as in plural – in fact, all 3 of them! For all you fans of the developer, check out the official details after the gap.

Last summer an indie adventure took the App Store literally by storm. With HECTOR: Badge of Carnage Ep1 (TMA Review) Straandlooper, a British studio previously known only for their animated flicks, snatched a boatload of glowing reviews and even nabbed themselves a lucrative (probablyâ€¦ hopefullyâ€¦) deal with Telltale, the pioneers of episodic adventure games. The entire adventure community had held its breath for nearly a year in anticipation of the sequel, which was finally released a few weeks ago in HECTOR Ep2 HD â€“ Senseless Acts of Justice.

There is luck, and then again – there is hard work. The App Store has been a place where many a developer has tried to find his fortune, though quite few have really succeeded. And while not a lot of folks can boast the millions of dollars made like Doodle Jump – BE WARNED: Insanely Addictive! or Angry Birds, some get their break in a different way. We’ve seenÂ a number of iOS dev teams gobbled up by big-time names, with Chillingo being one of the more recent celebrated acquisitions. Others get a well-deserved deal and partner up with big-names to reach new heights in their endeavours.

And I’m happy to announce that one such deal has just been made public. Straandlooper, developer of the superb HECTOR: Badge of Carnage Ep1 (TMA Review), have teamed up with one of the leaders in the adventure games market – Telltale Games – to bring their adventure from the iOS to PC and Mac. Even better, episodes 2 and 3 are already in production and will be released later this year along with the re-release of episode 1 for the medium screen.

I will try and secure the interview with Straandlooper soon, meanwhile, make sure you read the hilarious semi-official press-release from the guys after the gap.

When I reviewedHECTOR: Badge of Carnage Ep1 a few weeks ago I was immensely impressed by the amount of work and creativity gone into it. So much so that I even secured an interview with the creators Dean Burke and Kevin BeimersÂ that will go live in the coming weeks. And in anticipation of this I decided to write a complete walkthrough to help all of you out there still struggling to complete the obscure task the unknown terrorist posed before the “half-decent” detective.

Sadly, the adventure game genre on the App Store is far from being heavily populated. In fact each and every release, be it even a sub-par one, is a welcome addition. Most of them are ports of PC titles with a few rare but superb exceptions – 1112 episode 01, 1112 episode 02 (TMA Review), 1112 episode 02 HD and Fallen EP-1 (TMA Review). And out of the blue a new underdog just popped onto the scene:Â HECTOR: Badge of Carnage Ep1. In the best traditions of Sam & Max, developers Straandlooper send Detective Inspector Hector Â – their last and only line of defence against crime â€“ to stop the sniper terrorizing downtown.